Sinchao Rice Shoppe 心潮飯店 Taipei Modern Taiwan Restaurant in Xinyi

Sinchao Rice Shoppe a restaurant in the vibrant central Taipei Xinyi area. It is said to serve “the Old & New Taiwanese Cuisine in Kaohsiung“. Its name 心潮飯店 is a homophone for “新炒飯” i.e. new fried rice which is a menu staple in this restaurant. The promise of stir-fries loaded with wok hei and its all-day dining hours were enough to make us head towards this place for a late lunch.

Must-try MICHELIN-recommended Eat Near Taipei 101

There are hundreds of restaurants to choose from in the Taipei Xinyi area. Many tall gleaming skyscrapers including the world famous Taipei 101 are in this area. Many of them also house shopping and dining outlets. Sinchao Rice Shoppe 心潮飯店 is located in one of them – the Breeze Xinyi mall. It is a Bib Gourmand restaurant featured in the M Guide article: “Must-try MICHELIN-recommended Eats Near Taipei 101“.

Sinchao Rice Shoppe has an interior that is quite unexpected for a Chinese restaurant. Dimly lit with a dramatic ceiling design, the wood-rich decor is said to be inspired by US Chinatown diners circa 1920s. The “moon gate” on the left leads to the kitchen.

Sinchao Rice Shoppe Menu

The restaurant menu is attractively designed with big high resolution photos. Here are pictures of some sample pages. For our lunch in Taipei we selected the Taiwanese deep-fried pork chop with cabbage fried rice (TW$450), sautéed beef ribs with fermented Chinese cabbage (TW$550) and stir fried pea shoots with garlic and Shaoxing wine (TW$350).

心潮飯店 Wine

Along with the interesting food menu, Sinchao Rice Shoppe also has a nice selection of wines. The wines by the glass package deal – 3 glasses for TW$777 was tempting.

Taiwanese Lunch in Taipei

There was a mix-up in the kitchen that led to a delay in our food. This beautiful tomato salad was gifted by the kitchen to acknowledge their mistake. All was forgiven.

The pork chop fried rice looked very similar to the Din Tai Fong version. We thought the Sinchao fried rice was more flavourful as it had cabbage and other ingredients. The pork chop was larger but had a softer texture than the DTF version. We prefer the firmer texture of the DTF pork chop.

Sautéed beef ribs with fermented cabbage (above picture) was something we had not tried before. It was an enjoyable dish with a good mix of meat and vegetables. The fried pea shoots or dou miao was fresh and crunchy. We could have had a good lunch simply by ordering plain rice to eat with these two dishes and saved some money.

Menu

Ratings:
Food: 4
Service: 4
Value: 3
Atmosphere: 4
Overall Rating: 4 TOPs 

Sinchao Rice Shoppe 心潮飯店 
2F, Breeze Xin Yi, 68, Section 5, Zhongxiao East Road, Xinyi District,
Taipei

Opening Hours: 11am to 9:30pm

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